The next petition is PE1135, on the reviewing of guidelines to allow healthy gay and bisexual men to donate blood. Members have a note by the clerk. Although I will, of course, invite contributions from members, I note that the Government has changed its policy, so it is currently accepting blood from healthy gay and bisexual men. I believe that there is an argument for closing the petition on the basis that the petitioners have achieved their objective, but I would welcome the views of other members.
Official Report · Committee
Current Petitions
Blood Donation (PE1135)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- David Stewart Lab 2
- Nanette Milne Con 1
- Mark McDonald SNP 1
The record
4 contributionsClearly, the expert advice has changed. A lot of work has been done on the issue over the past few years. The Government is bound to take expert advice and I do not think that we can disagree with it. Given that the situation has changed as a result of that advice, the petition has no future with us. It has achieved its ends and we should close it.
There are mixed feelings in the gay community about whether the new guidelines go far enough. The question is whether it is the committee’s role to adjudicate on that. Given that the guidelines have changed, we should probably close the petition. Those who are not satisfied might wish to petition us again in the future. That could be done separately rather than as a continuation of the current petition, given that its objectives have, on the face of it, been achieved.
That is a reasonable point. My understanding is that the petitioners asked for, and got, a review and that the review changed the policy.Do members agree that we should close the petition under rule 15.7, on the basis of the clerk’s report, which is that the existing guidelines in respect of the exclusion criteria for blood donors have now been reviewed and the criteria revised to allow men, whose last sexual contact with another man was more than 12 months ago, to be blood donors subject to meeting other donor selection criteria?Members indicated agreement.
In this meeting
Everything on 4 Oct 2011 →- 14:00 New Petitions Petitions · 38
- 14:00 New Petitions Petitions · 36
- 14:00 New Petitions Petitions · 7
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 8
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 14
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 4
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 5
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 1
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 5
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 15
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 8
- 14:00 Current Petitions Petitions · 3
- 14:00 Witness Expenses Committee business · 2
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.